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This is a long piece about one of England's greatest explorers. In 1768 he set out on his first major voyage. James Cook was born in 1728 in the small village of Marton in Yorkshire. His father was a farm labourer who later became a farm manager. When he was 16 Cook moved to the seaside village of Staithes as an apprentice to a local tailor. He didn't like the work but what he could do, I guess, is look out of the shop window and see the sea.
Cook then moved to a friend of the tailor's in Whitby and found work on a ship carrying coal between Newcastle and London. He did this for some time and also chose to study alegebra, geometry, navigation and astronomy (the study of the stars and planets). Cook joined the royal navy in 1755 at the age of 26, which was quite old in those days. He saw action in the 7 years' war and helped to map and survey, or more likely survey and map, the entrance to the St Lawrence River in Canada. The accuracy of his maps was so great that he was noticed by the bosses in the Admiralty.
In 1766 he was given command of the ship Endeavour, which had actually been built in Whitby. In 1769 the planet Venus was due to pass in front of the sun, a very rare event but it could only be seen south of the equator. The British government decided to send an expedition to observe this and Cook was chosen as commander. With him was the astronomer Charles Green and the botanists Joseph Banks who would draw many pictures of the strange plants they would find. The government also had another, more secret, reason for the expedition and that was to find the Great Southern Continent, which many believed lay somewhere south of the equator. In actual fact, the Dutch had already seen and landed, briefly, on that continent but hadn't realised it. Cook was given sealed orders which he was not to open until they had observed the transit of Venus.
By the way if you are planning a Pacific holiday to watch the next transit, hard luck. It won't happen until 2117 and then 2125. The last ones were 2004 and 2012. Not looking good unless you are reading this some time well after 2017. Anyhow, Cook wasn't disappointed and he and his team arrived in Tahiti in April 1769 and watched everything they should but their observations were not as accurate as had been hoped.
Cook then opened his sealed orders and set off; for the next two and a half years. First he reached and mapped the two islands of New Zealand. This took him almost a year and then he sailed west and found the eastern coast of what is now Australia. On 29 April 1770 he landed and named the place Botany Bay, possibly because of his botanist's discoveries. He sailed north but in June hit what is now known as the Great Barrier Reef and his ship had to be driven on to the beach, tipped on its side, while repairs were made. This took seven weeks. He then went on till he reached the northern edge of eastern Australia, claimed the whole coast for Britain, and eventually returned home, arriving back in July 1771.
Cook's home life was very, very odd. During 16 years of marriage, he spent 4 years at home. He had married a lady called Elizabeth Betts at St Margaret's Church in Barking in 1762. Funnily enough that is the very church where I got married in 1972. My marriage too lasted 16 years but neither of us had to die to end it. Cook and Mrs Cook had 6 children, three of whom died before Cook but Mrs Cook, who was 14 years younger than her husband lived to the ripe old age of 93, outliving all her children. Cook's third child was born the day after he set off on his first voyage, died soon after and Cook knew nothing for 3 years, A different world.
Cook was also very good to his crew. He made sure they ate well and claimed that he never lost a man to the disease called scurvy. With no frozen foods and being at sea for months at a time it was very difficult to eat the right food. Scurvy is very rare these days and is caused when you don't get enough Vitamin C. Vitamin C is mainly found in fruit and vegetables and this is what the sailors had lacked. The disease caused many deaths in the British Navy and some argue more deaths than in the various wars.
Cook stayed at home for a while but in July 1772 he was off again, this time beginning his journey by looking for that vast southern continent. By the way George III was a great fan of Cook and his exploring. George III was the first Hanoverian King born in England, never left England and, in fact (atlas time) never went further north than Worcester. By sailing round New Zealand the first time, Cook had proved that New Zealand was not part of a great continent. Cook was told to go as far south as possible and then sail round the world at that latitude in the hope he would bump into that unknown landmass. Lines of latitude are the imaginary lines that go around the world, the equator being the middle one.
On 17 January 1773 Cook and his new ship, Resolution, became the first to cross the Antarctic Circle. The ice stopped him from going further south and, after sailing around the globe at that level, he found nothing and, after visiting many of the islands in the Pacific Ocean, he arrived home in July 1775. He was convinced there was no great southern continent but thought there might be a large landmass beyond the ice. He was right about the landmass beyond the ice.
July 1776 and Cook was off again, this time to look for the fabled north-west passage which many believed would allow ships to sail across the top of Canada. He was again in charge of Resolution while his second in command Charles Clerke was aboard the Discovery. They made their way to New Zealand, via Cape Town in South Africa, then on north and in January 1778 Cook became the first European to visit the Hawaiian Islands. He named them the Sandwich Islands after the Earl of Sandwich, head of the Admiralty. It is said that Sandwich liked playing cards and once asked his butler to bring him some meat between two slices of bread so he could continue playing and eat and not get his hands greasy. Others then ordered the same as Sandwich and the sandwich as we know it was born.
Cook sailed right up the north west coast of America, then Canada but couldn't find any passage through to the Atlantic. All this time spent sailing may have been beginning to have an effect on Cook as his behaviour became quite strange. He sailed south again and reached the Hawaiian Islands once more where he and his crew were greeted as gods. He left after a few months but then the mast on Resolution broke and he had to return. This time the islanders were less friendly and some of them stole one of the small boats belonging to Cook's crew. Cook landed and tried to take the chief as hostage until the boat was returned. However the villagers saw what Cook was trying to do and attacked the small party that had landed with Cook.
Cook turned to run but the villagers were quicker and he was felled by a villager and then stabbed to death. It was 14 February 1779. Britain's greatest explorer to date was dead. In his time, Cook mapped out over one third of the world unknown to anyone before.
His discovery of Australia also helped out a little later. Way back in 1718 an Act of Parliament, called the Transportation Act, said that people convicted of serious crimes could be sent to the Americas instead of being kept in prison in Britain. Between 1718 and 1776 over 50,000 convicts were sent to Maryland and Virginia in America. As you will see later, when Britain was defeated in the American War of Independence, it meant we could no longer send convicts there.
On 13 May 1787 a fleet of ships set out for the new land of Australia, as mapped by Captain Cook. They left Portsmouth and landed at Botany Bay. Between 1787 and 1868, when transportation of criminals stopped, over 150,000 were sent to Australia.
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